Identifying the ‘engines of change’ in the Middle East

Rolf Schwarz (second from right) from NATO’s Political Affairs and Security Policy Division discusses the Arab Spring revolutions at the 4th annual Global Lecture Series on Friday.

Since the Arab Spring began in late 2010, rulers in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia have been ousted while other upris­ings have spread throughout the Arab world — cap­ti­vating the globe’s atten­tion and forcing world leaders to deter­mine what, if any, inter­ven­tion by the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity is nec­es­sary, par­tic­u­larly the use of force.

On Friday, a group of renowned inter­na­tional affairs experts dis­cussed these issues and many others to kick off the 4th Global Lec­ture Series, held at North­eastern. The first group of pan­elists included Denis Sul­livan, director of Northeastern’s Middle East Center for Peace, Cul­ture and Devel­op­ment and pro­fessor of polit­ical sci­ence and inter­na­tional affairs; Rolf Schwarz from NATO’s Polit­ical Affairs and Secu­rity Policy Divi­sion; and Hisham Fahmy, chief exec­u­tive officer of the Amer­ican Chamber of Com­merce in Egypt.

Inter­na­tional involve­ment has been more preva­lent in some coun­tries than others; NATO led an inter­na­tional coali­tion last year in Libya, while the Gulf Coop­er­a­tion Council bro­kered a deal for Yemen’s pres­i­dent to step down. At Friday’s panel dis­cus­sion, Schwarz asserted the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity bears some level of respon­si­bility but stressed that the “engine of change” should be first and fore­most domestic.

“There must a domestic bar­gain between what cit­i­zens want and expect from their states in terms of secu­rity, the pro­vi­sion of wel­fare and polit­ical rep­re­sen­ta­tion,” he said.

Denise Garcia, assis­tant pro­fessor of polit­ical sci­ence and inter­na­tional affairs at North­eastern, orga­nized the day’s events with sup­port from Gerard Loporto, LA’73, and his family. Miguel de Corral — a third-​​year inter­na­tional affairs major who worked under Schwarz on co-​​op last year at the NATO Defense Col­lege in Rome ini­ti­ated by Garcia — mod­er­ated the morning panel. De Corral said it remains unclear whether a polit­ical renais­sance char­ac­ter­ized by democ­racy is occur­ring in the region, or whether the tumul­tuous period is instead leading to nuanced forms of author­i­tarian rule.

“All these coun­tries are on a very dif­fi­cult path to rebuilding or reforming their eco­nomic and polit­ical sys­tems. No country in the region has been unaf­fected by the events of the Arab Spring,” he said.

Sul­livan said a key lesson learned from post-​​9/​11 for­eign policy is that the world com­mu­nity must take a mea­sured approach in the Arab world to inter­ven­tion and state-​​building. He noted that in Baghdad, where the Arab League recently hosted its first summit in two decades, unstable con­di­tions remain — such as vio­lence, cor­rup­tion and dis­trust of lead­er­ship — that exist throughout the region.

For his part, Fahmy said that in Egypt, 18 mil­lion people voted in a con­sti­tu­tional ref­er­endum fol­lowing Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in Feb­ruary 2011. “It was exhil­a­rating seeing people really taking this seri­ously,” he said. How­ever, much progress remains in Egypt, which must now elect a pres­i­dent and write its con­sti­tu­tion. Fahmy cited the 27 pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates as evi­dence of “a new face of Egypt that we haven’t seen.”

During a Q&A ses­sion, sopho­more Tara Blum­stein, an inter­na­tional affairs and polit­ical sci­ence com­bined major, asked whether inter­na­tional inter­ven­tion — even when nec­es­sary — could hinder the process of nation-​​building. Schwarz answered by citing that how the nation’s mil­i­tary responds to civilian upris­ings has been a key indi­cator of the suc­cess of this process.

Later, an after­noon panel mod­er­ated by Valen­tine Moghadam, pro­fessor and director of inter­na­tional affairs at North­eastern, addressed key ques­tions and focused on the use of force in inter­na­tional rela­tions in the 21st century.

Related Content

About the Writer

Greg St. Martin is a senior editor for news@Northeastern in the Office of Marketing and Communications. He joined Northeastern in March 2010 after working at the Boston Metro newspaper for six years. Outside of work, he enjoys playing basketball, congratulating himself on finding great parking spots in the city, and listening to the comic genius of Steven Wright. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with his wife and daughter.

News@Northeastern is Northeastern University’s primary source of news and information. Whether it happens in the classroom, in a laboratory, or on another continent, we bring you timely stories about every aspect of life, learning and discovery at Northeastern. Contact the news team